Their first host.


As the evening drew on, and began to settle down into night, a new
care arose in the mind of the elder boy. Where were they to pass the
darkness?--how find shelter for sleep? It was a question that gave
Tommy no anxiety. He had been on the tramp often, now with one party,
now with another of his granny's lodgers, and had frequently slept in
the open air, or under the rudest covert. Tommy had not much
imagination to trouble him, and in his present moral condition was
possibly better without it; but to inexperienced Clare there was
something fearful in having the night come so close to him. Sleep out
of doors he had never thought of. To lie down with the stars looking
at him, nothing but the blue wind between him and them, was like being
naked to the very soul. Doubtless there would be creatures about, to
share the night with him, and protect him from its awful bareness; but
they would be few for the size of the room, and he might see none of
them! It was the sense of emptiness, the lack of present life that
dismayed him. He had never seen any creatures to shrink from. He
disliked no one of the things that creep or walk or fly. Before long
he did come to know and dislike at least one sort; and the sea held
creatures that in after years made him shudder; but as yet, not even
rats, so terrible to many, were a terror to Clare. It was Nothing that
he feared.

My reader may say, "But had no one taught him about God?" Yes, he had
heard about God, and about Jesus Christ; had heard a great deal about
them. But they always seemed persons a long way off. He knew, or
thought he knew, that God was everywhere, but he had never felt his
presence a reality. He seemed in no place where Clare's eyes ever